Choni Drabbles
by ForASecondThereWe'dWon
Summary: A collection of the Choni-centric drabbles I've previously posted on my Tumblr (forasecondtherewedwon), each based on one or multiple prompts, as requested by my followers. Drabble collections also available in Bughead, Varchie, Falice, and other flavours. Rating may change.
1. Woods of Red, Hair of Green

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 6: "You can't die. Please don't die."

* * *

"Ok," Toni panted, collapsing behind the wide-trunked oak tree where her girlfriend was already crouched, "Jughead's out. It's just Fangs and Sweet Pea left."

"I thought you said your friends were competitive," Cheryl accused, laying her battered paintball gun across her knees and examining her nails. Toni grabbed her hand and held it before she could become too absorbed with finding the chips in her scarlet polish.

"To most people, they are," Toni pointed out. "Being the captain of the River Vixens has kind of skewed your sense of competitiveness."

Cheryl leaned away from her, stealing a glance around the tree.

"Too bad you took Jughead out. I wanted to destroy that literate Littlest Hobo. After making him beg for mercy," she tacked on.

"Case in point," Toni muttered, fixing her ponytail.

"We need a plan," Cheryl decreed, turning back to her. "And no separating, _ma chère_. We do this together."

Toni grinned.

"They'll never know what hit them."

A short, hushed debate ensued; one of the things Toni loved about Cheryl was her decisiveness. They would work their way through the sparse woods, back to the stack of empty cardboard hamburger bun boxes they'd commandeered from Pop's recycling to be used as barriers. The boys, the two of them figured, would've become cocky in their stronghold. That would be their undoing when Toni and Cheryl attacked, leaving them cornered.

"Kiss for luck," Toni requested, pointing to her lips. Cheryl leaned in and Toni grabbed the back of her neck, hanging on for a few long moments. Her red hair brushed Toni's face and she inhaled. God, her girlfriend always smelled so good, even after a sweaty afternoon racing around in the forest.

"Let's go," Cheryl urged the second they broke apart.

They clasped hands and used their balanced weight to rise together to their feet. Then they ran for it. Toni kept darting glances sideways to check on her lady, but Cheryl was as tough and ruthless as any Southsider and didn't actually require looking after.

As soon as the boxes came in sight, Toni reached for Cheryl's hand and pulled her to a stop. She put a finger to her lips, then her girlfriend's. Cheryl licked the finger. Toni rolled her eyes.

"Would you quit it," Toni hissed. "This is war."

"In the heat of battle, the normal rules of engagement are suspended," Cheryl insisted with a smug smile. "Everyone knows that."

"That applies to brutality, not affection."

"Would you rather I break your wrist?" her girlfriend chirped cheerily.

"Very funny."

Toni turned away, squinting in the direction of their prey. Stupid sunlight was coming from the same way now. Maybe Fangs and Sweet Pea's strategy had something to it after all. It was smart to use nature to their advantage. She hunched forward and started to creep towards the cardboard fortress.

"SURPRISE!"

Whipping around, Toni watched Cheryl scream as Sweet Pea sprinted away into the trees. Toni hefted her paintball gun and fired with precision, but her shot didn't carry far enough. That boy had unfairly long legs. She turned back to Cheryl, who, as soon as she had an audience, committed to a dramatic, drawn-out death scene.

Her girlfriend toppled sideways with the grace of a dancer (or a cheerleader) and Toni smiled in spite of herself as she kneeled down at Cheryl's side. These games were so much more fun since she'd met her.

"No, Cheryl!" she cried, caressing her teammate's cheek. "You can't die. Please don't die!"

"He got me," Cheryl choked out, feigning heavy breathing. Her lustrous hair looked beautiful against the grass, Toni thought. If only she could've brought her camera.

"Surely it isn't fatal, my love!"

"Remember me," Cheryl beseeched, grabbing for her hand.

"Those bastards! I'll avenge you!" Toni promised. Her girlfriend raised a limp arm, beckoning her down. Toni lowered her face to catch her final words.

"All's fair in war… and love."

Cheryl's eyes closed and her hands fell to the forest floor. Toni let out a heartbroken sigh, smoothing her girlfriend's hair back from her face. Where had Sweet Pea even hit? Somewhere on her back? Cheryl allowed herself to be half-rolled to the side for Toni's examination. There it was: a glob of electric green paint on her right shoulder blade and―

"In her HAIR?" Toni shrieked, scrambling to her feet. "SWEET PEA, YOU ARE DEAD MEAT! YOU HEAR ME?"

"Oh, shit," she heard from close by. So they'd both abandoned the box sanctuary and Fangs was out here too.

"YOU BETTER RUN," she threatened at full volume, taking off in his direction. Sweet Pea slid sideways out from behind another tree 50 feet away as Fangs ran past and grabbed his sleeve. "Man down," Toni whispered to herself in anticipation, raising her weapon while she ran and letting paint fly.


	2. Au Lac

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 79: "You're safe now. I've got you."

* * *

" _This_ is not a vacation," Cheryl informed her girlfriend as they pulled into a driveway defined by the one spot there were no trees, rather than by something normal like asphalt or concrete. Toni smiled to herself as she switched off the ignition and heaved her door open. "A vacation involves first class air travel, and fantastic shopping opportunities, and speaking French! Or at least one of the above!"

" _Je peux parler en français si tu préfères_ ," Toni offered cheekily, beginning to pull their bags from the trunk.

"That's _très drôle_ , but in all seriousness, your accent's coming along nicely," Cheryl complimented, sliding her sunglasses out of her hair and putting them on before emerging from the car to help. She glanced around and then way up, taking in the mature pines. "Where are we?"

"North," Toni huffed, hoisting Cheryl's heaviest bag.

"That isn't very precise," she complained, slinging the strap of Toni's backpack―into which she'd crammed all she claimed she'd need for their weekend away, to Cheryl absolute, incredulous amazement―over her shoulder.

"North of Riverdale," her girlfriend amended, "but south of Québec."

"Ah," Cheryl droned in sarcastic comprehension. Seeing how much fun Toni was having with this plot to take her out into the wilderness, Cheryl decided to let it go. She'd been learning to do that more and more since Toni had become her girlfriend.

"You'll love it, Cher," Toni promised, wrapping a free hand around her waist as they approached their home for the next three days. "Just wait until we get out on the lake!"

"I would happily have flown you to Paris, _ma chère_. I received plenty from Daddy's inheritance."

Toni said nothing, just smiled at her.

Cheryl sighed and leaned her red hair against Toni's pink, reaching for the railing of the cabin she was horrified to see looked nothing like the aerial view of the Lodge's cottage (which she'd previously investigated on Google Earth). Honestly, it looked more like the kind of place a pair of teenage girls, such as themselves, would be murdered. Fortunately, Cheryl knew the truth: that quaint little towns like Riverdale were the spots where tragedy struck, while isolated cabins like this one were perfectly safe.

"This is NOT safe!" Toni shouted at her the next day when, as had been promised, they got out on the lake.

"Nonsense," Cheryl insisted from her own canoe. "I gave both vessels a thorough inspection and found them perfectly seaworthy. Or, lake-worthy. If you're scared," she offered, softening, "you're welcome to share mine."

It was what they should've done in the first place, but Toni being Toni had wanted to learn the nautical ropes alone. Cheryl instantly realized her mistake of implying that her girlfriend was afraid as Toni's expression settled dangerously and she jabbed her paddle into the water in a stroke utterly lacking finesse.

"This was your idea," Cheryl reminded her.

"When I said 'out on the lake,' I meant more like 'out in.' You know, as in swimming."

"Well, that's entirely different. When I saw that canoe rental place, I thought this would be a nice surprise for you."

"Serpents are not supposed to float on water," Toni grumbled, shifting around on her canoe's flat seat and peering over the sides. Cheryl rolled her eyes and adjusted the halter of her bathing suit beneath her sundress. They were still in very shallow water, maybe four feet deep.

"What about sea snakes?" she asked idly, laying her paddle sideways in front of her to prop her elbows on it. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, and even without the more vigorous version of this activity that she'd planned, Cheryl was enjoying the sunbathing.

"I do not belong to a gang called the Southside _Sea Snakes_!" Toni snapped, leaning over more to probe solid ground with her paddle.

Cheryl chuckled to herself, closed her eyes, sighed, and tilted her face up to the sun. She could wait this out. Any minute now, Toni would relax and start enjoying herself. Cheryl loved being on the water, had loved it from childhood, and predicted it was only a matter of time before her girlfriend felt the same. She just needed to get past this reckless independent urge, then they could share a two-person canoe and go for a leisurely paddle around the lake. Maybe pack a lunch and scout out a picnic spot on the far side of the water. Relaxing into her daydream, Cheryl nearly lost her paddle over the side when she heard Toni's screech, followed by a large splash.

"TONI!" she yelled instinctively. It didn't matter that the water wasn't deep or that the largest things in it were probably perch. Her girlfriend was in trouble!

Said girlfriend's pink-haired head broke the surface. Her face was not smiling.

"Oh my god," Cheryl breathed. "Come here!"

Bringing her canoe up close to Toni, Cheryl wrestled her over the side of the boat, then stretched as far as she could with her paddle to hook Toni's canoe so it wouldn't drift. They sat together in the belly of the boat, Cheryl's arm around her girlfriend's soaked shoulders.

"You're safe now. I've got you," she assured her.

"Next year," Toni stated, wringing out her hair, "you're flying me to Paris."


	3. Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 11: "What's with the box?"; prompt 39: "How long have you been standing there?"; and prompt 78: "You weren't supposed to hear that."

* * *

"The door," Toni said, tapping Cheryl on the shoulder to interrupt her focused swaying to 'Love Potion No. 9.'

Cheryl opened her eyes and stared hard at her.

"WHAT?" she shouted, though their heads were no more than a foot apart.

"THE DOOR!" Toni screamed back.

She'd have gotten it herself, but her arms were full of soda cans, carried up from the basement of Thistle House to top up the ice-filled bucket in the kitchen. Toni wouldn't have gone into the living room at all, since it meant navigating the rocking, jumping, and gyrating bodies of 50 of their closest friends, except that, away from the blasting music, she'd distantly heard the eerie chime of the doorbell―something Cheryl had promised more than once to change and had yet to get around to. It wasn't like they'd been living in the house for a decade or anything…

As quickly as she could, Toni made her way through the room. Halfway to the kitchen, she gave up and dumped the cans into the arms of Jughead, who was sitting this song out on a high-backed chair in the corner, Zorro mask pushed up on his forehead.

"SORRY," she yelled at her friend as he struggled not to drop anything. "I HAVE TO STOP CHERYL FROM TERRORIZING ANOTHER CHILD!"

Jughead nodded in understanding, not bothering with a response she'd never hear, and Toni hurried back the way she'd come. Why, oh why had they decided to host their Halloween party on the night of Halloween? It meant two sets of visitors, two sets of treats, and half the time available to spend on any one thing. She slid into the front hall, _Risky Business_ -style, and straightened her costume glasses. Dressing as journalist Clark Kent let her use her camera as a prop, making it easier to snap photos of their friends all evening long. Another plus was seeing her wife in a Superman getup, her alter ego and perfect other half.

Right now, that other half was checking out her tights-clad back half in the full length hall mirror.

"Cheryl!" Toni urged. "Get the fucking door!"

But her wife had already been reaching for it and the door swung open to reveal the comically round eyes of five or six kids to whom Toni had just introduced the F word. She grit her teeth, snatched up their well-stocked candy bin, and approached the children with a smile.

"Hey, guys. You weren't supposed to hear that." She dug the largest chocolate bars from the bottom of the container, not above winning their visitors over with a sugary bribe.

"Um, trick or treat!" one of them belatedly piped up and the whole miniature posse hoisted their goody bags at once.

Toni gave Cheryl's hair a surreptitious tug to encourage her to help distribute the loot and was rewarded with an annoyed look. For being both of their favourite holiday, this one hadn't been the smoothest between the two of them. With a sigh, Cheryl straightened up from where she'd been leaning against the open door.

"Sorry we didn't come to the door right away," Toni offered in the soft singsong she'd recently developed for use on people under the age of 10, feeling guilty towards more than just the assortment of ghosts and Avengers on their front step, but too stubborn to apologize directly to Cheryl. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Ages," a little one answered with innocent bluntness, pushing to the front of the group inside the trappings of a bulky cardboard costume. Toni dipped into the supply to pass out a second round of sweets.

Her wife didn't take the guileless criticism quite so well.

"What's with the box?" she inquired with a jerk of her chin.

"I'm a robot!" he cheerily replied.

"I'm not convin―" Cheryl began, but Toni cut her off.

"Ok! Thanks for stopping by, everybody! Happy Halloween!"

With a frantic wave, she swung the door shut. As 'Clap for the Wolfman' started to play in the other room, Clark Kent and Superman petrified into a standoff.

"It was a poorly executed costume," Cheryl finally said. "I mean, what are his parents watching? _The Jetsons_? Aren't they aware of the technological advancements in AI? If that kid had come dressed totally normal and said he was an android, _that_ would've been an impressive costume."

"Oh my _god_ ," Toni whined. "Are you serious? He was like five years old!"

"We're living in a post-Steve Jobs world! That kid should be able to code, give a TED talk, and design environmentally-friendly energy solutions to rival the creations of Elon Musk!"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what's the point?" Cheryl shot back, crossing her arms. Toni was pissed and the fact that the stupid Superman logo kept drawing her eyes to her wife's chest wasn't helping.

"That you need to learn how to talk to children!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm having one!"

That shut Cheryl up as Toni had never seen her shut up before. A second later, Superman was wrapped around Clark Kent like she was trying to merge the two halves back into one body and snack-sized chocolate bars were scattered across the floor.

"Let's go back to the party," Toni suggested quietly, stepping away before her wife could plant another kiss on her cheek. "I think I'll be able to enjoy it now. We should celebrate."

"We are," Cheryl assured her, "We're going to have a toast." She bent down quickly then stood, presenting Toni with a chocolate bar in each hand. "Do you prefer Snickers or Kit Kat?"

With a grin, Toni motioned for the Kit Kat. There was no delicate, refined clink of champagne flutes, but to the Halloween-loving moms-to-be, the crinkle of candy wrappers sounded so much sweeter.


	4. Cheryl, Nervous

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 91: "Can I hold your hand?"

* * *

When Cheryl went somewhere, she went briskly. There was always an aim, a goal, a prize to keep her eye on. Peers and adults alike had learned to fear the click of her heels and the flash of her red hair when she turned the corner on them.

Today, she was dragging her feet.

"Is it too late to change my mind?" she asked Toni on the way from Thistle House to the Southside. Her girlfriend shot her a _dream on_ glance, and not in a frisky, flirtatious way.

"The Serpent tattoo is the symbol of your acceptance into the gang," she reminded Cheryl. "It's a badge of honour, like…" Toni snapped her fingers, "… like how your hair marks you as a Blossom."

"And look how that turned out," Cheryl retorted, sarcasm pooling in her mouth like venom. "These days, my family name is nothing more than something to be ashamed of. If Daddy's hideous murder of Dear Jason hadn't proven it, Mumsy's despicable new business endeavor certainly has." Toni gave her a sympathetic smile, but Cheryl wasn't done. "Honestly, a brothel? Doesn't she know that most women turn to yoga or shopping for locally grown organic vegetables when their midlife crises come a-calling?"

"You're pretty nervous, huh?"

Cheryl discarded her façade like an unflattering skirt.

"Can't you do it?" she pleaded, gripping Toni's hand tightly in her own.

"No, absolutely not. I already told you." Toni looked uncomfortable, but Cheryl continued to sulk.

"Why, because if you mess up you're going to have to see your mistake every day for the rest of your life?" she taunted.

Toni scoffed.

"Is that a marriage proposal?"

"When I propose marriage to you, Toni Topaz, you'll know it," Cheryl assured her with an arrogant toss of her head. "But why won't you give me my tattoo? I know you're good; I've seen Jughead's. That tattoo is easily the most attractive thing about that escaped bridge troll."

Toni sighed as they came in sight of the Wyrm. Cheryl would be getting inked upstairs, in the popup parlour that appeared like rubbing-alcohol-scented magic whenever a new Serpent was initiated into the gang.

"I don't want to hurt you," she confessed. Cheryl laughed.

"Well, of course it'll hurt. I already know that."

"Yeah, but I mean _I_ don't want to be the one to cause you pain. I couldn't do that. I want you in the gang, and I'm so proud of you, but I'm not jamming a needle into your skin."

Cheryl's hand went to her stomach.

"Please cease describing it in those terms. I can't promise I won't be violently ill."

Toni pulled her in close until their foreheads bumped together.

"I'm sorry. I was exaggerating. You're going to be fine. I already told the guy giving you your tattoo that if I don't think he's being gentle enough, I'm going to cut off his balls."

Cheryl sighed.

"You can't imagine what a comfort that is to me."

Toni laughed.

"I thought so." She took a deep breath, encouraging her girlfriend to do the same. "Any questions before we go in?"

Cheryl glanced nervously from one of Toni's eyes to the other, their faces so close together.

"Can I hold your hand?" she whispered.

"Of course. Just don't squeeze so hard that you break my fingers."

"Never," Cheryl vowed. "Those fingers are far too important a part of my sexual happiness."

"You old romantic," Toni joked, taking her hand. "Come on. Let's make a Serpent out of you."


	5. This Means War(drobe)!

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 27: "I'm not going to apologize for this. Not anymore."; prompt 29: "It must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line."; and prompt 57: "I'm up to the challenge."

* * *

"You have to at least respect the fact that I never pushed too hard," Cheryl dictated, following Toni up the staircase at Thistle House.

"Maybe you didn't say anything," Toni allowed, "but I knew you wanted to. So I'm not sure that argument counts."

"I'm not going to apologize for this. Not anymore."

"Then your mouth will be freed up for more enjoyable pursuits," Toni replied, tossing her girlfriend a smirk over her shoulder. She bounded up the last two steps to the landing and turned left. Cheryl grabbed her arm and tugged her the other way.

"It must be hard with your sense of direction," the redhead chastised, "never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line."

She softened the criticism with a brisk kiss to Toni's cheek before linking their arms and heading for her bedroom.

"I'll leave those to you then, shall I?"

"Along with the revamping of your wardrobe, you mean?" Cheryl gave her a smug smile.

"I gave in, didn't I?"

"Eventually. Although, I suspect part of this is you trying to repay me for joining your gang."

"Jughead's gang," Toni corrected as Cheryl flung open the door of her room and they stepped inside.

"King, _schming_ ," Cheryl bantered. "You were there first."

Toni followed her girlfriend to the walk-in closet, keeping her mouth firmly shut on the subject of gang leadership. Not just her, but everyone in the gang knew that Cheryl had strong opinions about the Serpents. Inducting her wasn't going to change that. If anything, it had made Cheryl blunter, bossier, and ballsier than ever. Setting her mind―and her will―to 'reinvigorating' (Cheryl's word) Toni's clothing options was only the latest iteration of the sense of pride and ownership Cheryl felt over the Serpents and her place amongst them.

"Before you start," Toni warned, holding up a cautioning finger, "I'd like to state for the record that I'm not going to like most of the stuff you try to put me in."

"I'm up to the challenge," Cheryl calmly replied, burrowing into the silky blouses that hung along one rail like a bear into its winter den.

"I don't know if I am," Toni grumbled, throwing herself across the end of Cheryl's meticulously made bed.

"I promise to be gentle, _ma chère_."

She emerged, heaping a dozen items over the bench seat at the foot of the bed.

"What you really need is more red," Cheryl stated, heading back in for another armful.

"Gee, I wonder where I'd find that," Toni joked.

"Don't you worry," her girlfriend replied with a wink, tossing a sleek scarlet skirt at her, "I've quite literally got you covered."


	6. It's Not Safe to Dream Alone

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 45: "I had a nightmare about you and I just wanted to make sure you're okay." and prompt 65: "Look at me―just breathe, okay?"

* * *

"And this is where you'll be," Cheryl said, directing her three stray Serpents into Thistle House's rather magnificent spare bedroom with the polite, polished smile of a flight attendant. Sweet Pea and Fangs in particular didn't exactly blend in with their surroundings, but they were part of the same gang Cheryl was, which made them family to her now.

"Even Toni?" Sweet Pea asked with a suggestive smirk, elbowing Cheryl's girlfriend.

"Yes," Cheryl affirmed. "There are two beds―one is obviously for Toni, so you boys can either share or flip for the other. I've laid out plenty of blankets and pillows in case one of you ends up on the floor."

"Wow, really?" Fangs asked, leaning his back against the doorframe. The crutch was gone from under his arm, but Cheryl knew the staircase was a trial. "Isn't it your house now? And you're still not letting your girlfriend in your room?"

"Thistle House is mine and my nana's," Cheryl chirped. "She's old-fashioned and doesn't feel it would be proper for my beloved and I to share a bed. Though I'm disappointed," she flashed a longing look at Toni, who frowned sympathetically, "there's no reason for me not to respect her wishes."

"Just wait 'til she goes to bed and sneak Toni in," Sweet Pea suggested with a shrug. "Old people have godawful hearing."

Cheryl tossed her hair in irritation, stepping closer as she brought her powers of intimidation to bear on Southside Gumby.

"I haven't been Empress of the Serpents for long―"

"That's not a thing," he argued.

"―so I can accept that there's a wealth of history I have yet to be informed of. My family has history as well. _You_ see an old lady, half-blind and unable to move from room to room without assistance, but that isn't what _I_ see. Make no mistake, Sweet Pea. Nana Rose is ever watchful."

Taking a last look around at the trio, she was satisfied to see their faces looking appropriately spooked. No one was going to disrespect or underestimate Nana Rose on her watch.

"Well," Cheryl said cheerfully, "goodnight, all!"

She leaned in to put the heartfelt kiss she'd been carrying all day to bed on Toni's lips.

"I'm just one room over if you need anything at all," she promised, taking her girlfriend's hand.

"I know," Toni replied. "I'll be safe here." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate her roommates. "These two lunkheads are only a danger to themselves."

"Goodnight."

"Night, Cher," Toni said softly, closing the door so she could yell at her friends to stop testing the fluffiness of the pillows by walloping each other over the head with them.

Cheryl settled in for the night, going through her bedtime routine and taking great comfort in the fact that everyone she loved most in the world was now under the same roof―meaning Nana and Toni. The other two were going to require time to warm up to.

Her sleep should have been just as calm as the preparation for it had been. It didn't take Cheryl long to drift off and though the dream she quickly tumbled into clearly took recollections of Toni as its source material, they weren't memories she wanted to revisit. Ever.

She woke up with the room still pitch black around her, gasping and clammy all over. Penny… Penny Peabody―as despicable a woman as the other Penelope Cheryl knew―had captured Toni. Unlike in real life, Cheryl hadn't shown up armed and threatened the ex-Serpent and the entire gang of Ghoulies until Toni was untied and back in her arms. She'd come too late, stumbling out of the woods with her hair in a snarl and not so much as a butter knife to coerce them with. And Toni… Toni had already been dead when she arrived…

Instincts leading her to the predictable consolation of the dramatic, Cheryl fetched the candelabra from the top of her dresser and hastily struck a match to light the candles. She flew from her room of eerie shadows, not stopping to seek a dressing gown, and hurried to the room next door.

Striding through the door, she caught her foot on a large object and stumbled over it onto her knees.

"Jesus Christ!" Toni yelped, struggling to sit up from the cozy nest she'd fashioned herself. One of the boys snorted in his sleep, but neither seemed to wake.

"Oh!" Cheryl panted, heart twanging frantically like the string of her bow at the moment of arrow's release. "You scared me!"

"That's exactly what I was g―"

Cheryl cut her girlfriend off by yanking her into a breathless hug.

"Woah," Toni said soothingly, stroking the hair that lay straight down Cheryl's back as she tucked her chin more securely over her shoulder. "I'm guessing falling over me in the dark isn't what scared you?"

Cheryl sniffled, fighting hard against the urge to cry, and pulled back.

"Look at me," Toni instructed. "Just breathe, ok?"

Her girlfriend nodded, rapidly calmly herself.

"Ah!" Toni grabbed her by the wrist and righted the candelabra Cheryl hadn't noticed she was holding aslant.

"Thanks," she whispered in reply. "Burning down one house makes a statement, but two looks like carelessness."

Toni smiled weakly and touched her palm to her girlfriend's cheek.

"Baby, it's the middle of the night. Tell me what's wrong."

"Can't I make a dramatic entrance in my own home? The Phantom of the Opera always got away with it," Cheryl joked, blinking back her watery vision.

"Maybe if you came out of a hidden door or rotating fireplace or something like that," Toni offered understandingly. She raised her eyebrows to encourage Cheryl to quit stalling.

"I had a nightmare about you and I just wanted to make sure you're okay," Cheryl confessed.

"I'm fine," Toni avowed. "I'm just fine. No thanks to those two." She jerked her head towards the beds.

"How did you end up on the floor? I thought I made it clear to them―"

"They were totally willing to let me have one of the beds," Toni explained, "but I couldn't stand them squabbling over the other one."

"And they couldn't share because…?"

"They're terrible at it."

"Ah."

"I made the decision that would let me get to sleep the fastest, which worked out great until you came barrelling in."

The girls laughed. There was a sound of someone shifting in bed, so Cheryl blew out the candles.

"Don't you want to go back to your own room?" Toni murmured, feeling Cheryl lift the blankets and wiggle in next to her.

"They're all my rooms," she pointed out. "I own this house."

They began giggling again as Cheryl pushed the candelabra as far away as possible, secretly hoping Sweet Pea would step on it in the morning. That was the cheerful thought that sent her into her second, and much nicer, sleep of the night, Toni's arms wrapped snugly around her.


	7. Trading Secrets

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 55: "I fell in love with my best friend."

* * *

"What about you, Cheryl Bombshell," Toni teased across the lip of a beer bottle, "have any secrets?"

Aside from their rather volatile encounter in the girls' bathroom weeks before, Toni hadn't had much interaction with Riverdale Barbie (comes with her own cherry red convertible and creepy manor house!). All of the Southside transfers had taken to keeping their heads down after learning the Riverdale High students had fuses just as short as their own―and that punishment invariably came on swift, stumpy bulldog legs to the former in the event of an altercation. So much for an unbiased, welcoming administration.

"More than I could count on all four of our hands combined," Cheryl replied with a saucy smirk, tracing a finger from one of those hands over the back of Toni's.

"I'll settle for just one," Toni bargained, giving F.P. an innocent shrug as he walked by and directed a stern look at the drink in her hand.

Toni had no clue how Cheryl Blossom had achieved her spot on top of the pyramid, both on the cheerleading team and in the halls, but when she'd set her sights on the Serpents, Toni had had a bad feeling that their gang would either topple or be forced to incorporate her. It turned out, Cheryl was ready to be an ally to them, borne of some need for rebellion or just the urge to lead, Toni didn't know.

As often happened with teenagers impassioned by hormones, serial killers, and other impetuses, one thing led to another. In practical terms, this meant Cheryl went from sneering at the Serpents, to insulting them, to ignoring them, to not actively persecuting them, to helping them, to saving them, to becoming one of them. And now she was here, at the Whyte Wyrm, sitting across from Toni. Possibly _flirting_ with Toni.

Cheryl sighed, twisting her long hair in both hands and laying it over her shoulder.

"I fell in love with my best friend."

"Oh yeah?"

Being one of only a few female gang members in the younger demographic, Toni didn't often talk love, crushes, or even feelings―apart from feelings of pain or revenge. This was… nice. Interesting. She was ready to dig in, even if a piece of her had just bared its pointy little teeth at the thought of Cheryl bestowing her love on some undeserving Northsider asshole.

"I thought you were single," she added, probing, eyes moving from the label of her beer to Cheryl's face and back again.

Cheryl nodded, a smirk Toni didn't get the meaning of spreading her red lips.

"So far."

"Then why hasn't this person done anything about it?" Toni asked, trying to sound casual.

Astoundingly, Cheryl leaned back in her chair and propped her crossed ankles on the table they were sharing.

"You tell me," she challenged.

Oh, were they being sly now? Toni could play that game all day.

"I'm not your best friend," she stated with a grin.

"No?"

"Not a chance."

"Elaborate," Cheryl requested with a wave of one of her pale, slim hands.

"You hardly know me, you screamed at me in the bathroom, and…" The beer might've run down her throat like water, but it was making her brain slow like molasses. "… and that second one again. I wouldn't assume you even thought of me as your friend, let alone your _best_ friend."

"Let alone someone I'm in love with," Cheryl contributed.

"Exactly."

"Here's the thing, Toni Topaz." Cheryl came forward with a thump, the legs of her chair banging the ground and her feet returning to the floor. "All those people at Riverdale High who cower or run the other way when I turn down the hall? That's fear. Sure," she went on, reaching for Toni's hand, which Toni willingly gave up, "they listen to me, they obey me, they dread my wrath, but not one of them is my friend. Minions make for poor company."

With her free hand, Cheryl lifted Toni's half-empty bottle and took a swig.

"That's disgusting," she said, grimacing after she swallowed.

"What can I say," Toni replied, trying to remain calm. "The bartender doesn't waste the best stuff when he's serving to minors. Time and a breath mint will cure the aftertaste."

"And the other thing?" Cheryl inquired, moving their hands to interlink their fingers. She looked long at the way they intertwined, then up into Toni's eyes like a lightning flash. "Is there a cure for that?"

"I'll look into it," Toni promised, then leaned forward to grasp the lapels of Cheryl's new leather jacket and give those red lips of hers a firm kiss.


	8. Us, in Parallel

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 38: "Everyone keeps telling me you're the bad guy."

A sci-fi AU!

* * *

"You're late tonight," Toni acknowledged at the sound of Cheryl's heels clacking up the steps.

Cheryl yawned.

"I had to wait until Elvis died."

Toni stiffened.

"What do you mean?" she asked hesitantly.

"Oh, Toni! We had a blast tonight," Cheryl gushed, enthusiasm reviving her. "The jukebox was working as hard as the waiters, tunes pouring out the windows until 2:30!"

So she hadn't meant the man, only the music. That was a relief. Toni tried her hardest not to let anything slip that Cheryl wouldn't know about yet, but since she was often tired when they met up to talk, it was sometimes dicey. She checked her watch, clicking a button to make the face glow a gross green-y yellow. It was a _Jurassic Park_ watch Sweet Pea had gifted her out of a box of French Toast Crunch. 4:24 a.m. Hours and minutes were their language, their one constant.

In 1997, Toni stretched her legs out over the dented and graffitied metal roof of Pop's.

In 1957, Cheryl fluffed her poodle skirt around her on the diner's front step.

"I wish you coulda been there," she added wistfully.

"Me too," Toni immediately replied, though dancing in diners wasn't really her thing. It _could_ be her thing, if Cheryl was with her. Sparing a second to daydream, Toni traced the New York Dolls patch on the left thigh of her jeans.

"It woulda been swell to take you as my date," Cheryl chattered, perking up again and tapping her feet on the ground like she was Eleanor Powell. "I wish you could meet everybody. Midge, Polly, Betty, Kevin…"

"You're still ok with the fact that I told my friends about… us?" Toni asked. It was a clear night, beautiful. She thought she could see Orion's Belt.

"What would I do about it if I wasn't?" Cheryl laughed.

 _Come busting through whatever it is that divides us like that iceberg busted the Titanic_ , Toni thought to herself. There was no point saying it. They knew by now that the time they had together was more enjoyable if they didn't think about that huge complication. Parallel dimensions were a real bitch and a half.

"Thing is," Toni began again after Cheryl's question had blown away somewhere between their missing decades, "they aren't taking it super well."

"They believed you, didn't they? I mean, gosh, this stuff does happen," Cheryl informed her. "Didn't you ever hear about those spacemen crashing in New Mexico? Do people still talk about that?"

"In reverse order, yes, yes, and sort of." Toni smiled, staring up into the dark, her attention being continually drawn to Venus's radiance.

"So, what's the trouble? I'm phonier than a Martian?" Cheryl huffed, propping her elbows on her knees and sinking her chin into her hands. It wasn't so easy, facing your own potential unreality. Judy Garland never made a picture about that.

"Worse," Toni said, trying to level with her. "Everyone keeps telling me you're the bad guy."

"Well," Cheryl admitted, "I did burn down my house and get questioned by a policeman about my brother's murder."

"I didn't share that. Didn't seem like something that would help your case," Toni joked, zipping her leather jacket all the way up. It was getting chilly, like the milkshakes Cheryl had told her they used to make in the diner she was currently lying on top of.

"I should be a marvel to them!" Cheryl argued. "A miracle! A real upstanding, magical sort of character! I don't understand it." She stared at her feet.

If only this was something Toni could explain to her, how everybody in her world, in her time, had seen more marvels than they could stomach. Sure, going to catch _Independence Day_ at the rundown Twilight Drive-In was just another Saturday night, until their very own apocalypse came calling collect. They'd prayed for anyone and everyone to save them, putting faith in God, the Terminator, and the President of the United States. (Personally, Toni'd held out a wild hope for the Power Rangers.) Her version of Earth had been hand-served a Big Mac with a side of supernatural by the Ronald McDonald from Hell and, Hamburglar forgive her, she wanted to protect Cheryl from that knowledge. Cheryl with her cherry milkshakes, and her living Elvis, and her school dances, and her dead twin, and her cold mother, and her preference for women over men that she had to keep secret.

"You're a miracle to me, babe," Toni professed, sliding her arm out to let it dangle over the side, hand waiting for a hold that would never happen.

" _You're_ the miracle," Cheryl disputed. She was always like this, causing more problems around her than Lucy at the conveyor belt. The more outspoken she was, the more her mother berated her and the teachers threatened her with the yardstick. But she couldn't change. She needed this strong self too badly in a world without Toni. "You remember the night we met, don't you?"

"Yes, I do remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the wide world."

Maybe it was kind of cheap to rip off a line from _Forrest Gump_ , but it was how Toni felt. What did it hurt that Cheryl couldn't know it wasn't totally original?

"You saved me," Cheryl stated, glancing along the front wall of Pop's as she mentally followed the route she'd taken that night, almost a year earlier, with Nick.

Nick St. Clair had been so attentive and complimentary―and, Cheryl owned to herself, such a dreamboat―that all that evening, she'd felt herself doubting Veronica's warnings about him. When Nick folded Cheryl's sweater for her on the booth seat on top of his jacket so it wouldn't get dirty. When he told her how pretty she looked. When he volunteered his own change to play whichever song she wanted to hear from the jukebox. All these things had added up to him being a gentleman. So, when he'd asked her to come out and speak quietly to him away from her friends, her heart had pounded with the first booms of devotion. When he'd forced her around the side of the building and grabbed at her skirt, trying to yank it up above her hips, her heart had pounded with fear instead.

Cheryl had a good loud scream, but she couldn't use it because he kept blocking her mouth with either his hand or his lips and tongue. She'd been truly afraid, knowing it was unlikely any of her friends inside would be leaving Pop's soon, and probably not coming around the side anyway.

Suddenly, she'd felt a presence she couldn't explain. Like there was someone there, on her side. It had given her the strength to shove Nick away and get help. Three nights later, she'd come back to the same spot, hours after everyone had gone and the place was quiet, and heard Toni softly singing some song about a Vietnamese baby, whatever that meant. Despite the shock of it, it had been, and still was, incredible how quickly two people could connect.

"By accident," Toni said, downplaying her role because there was no way Cheryl, who loved to praise her, could ever be counted on to portray her in the correct light.

"Not a chance! The world literally opened up for us, Toni, so we could be together."

"You think so?" Toni asked, sitting up and hanging her legs over the edge of the diner, careful to avoid the jagged glass of shattered windows. She always had to be certain, to speak with finality, but Cheryl let her question more than her reality. Toni flung herself off the edge, landing amongst tall, itchy weeds, and waded over to the step.

"Uh huh." Cheryl could hear her footfalls.

"You wanna chill 'til dawn, or do you have to get home?"

"No. I can… chill."

"Alrighty then," Toni said, facing the step. "Scoot over."

Cheryl wiggled to the left, leaving a space on the side Toni's voice was drifting from.

Toni sat, breathed deep as she settled in.

After a moment, Cheryl titled her head to the side. If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe it was resting on Toni's shoulder.


	9. Like Maria

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 80: "Teach me?"

* * *

"Purse your lips tighter, Sweet Pea!" Cheryl snapped, patrolling the straggling line of young Serpents like a drill sergeant. "It's not that hard!"

He let his jaw drop open and rubbed his cheeks roughly between fingers and thumb. She stared him down.

"Did Maria get it right away?" he demanded.

"Actually…" Cheryl frowned as she thought, "… it was a metal whistle in the movie, and she refused to use it."

"WHAT?!" Sweet Pea shouted, not really at her, just sort of at the world in general. She'd already gotten used to that. "I only agreed to this because you said Christopher Plummer and Maria―" Cheryl cringed as he mixed the names of an actor and a character, "―did it in the movie."

"No," Cheryl reminded him, "I told _Fangs_ it was in _The Sound of Music_. I don't know what he said to you to convince you to be here, only that it worked."

"Sweet Pea loves Christopher Plummer," Fangs offered, working his jaw after he'd stopped trying to perfect his whistle.

"He's like 100 years old, but he's still cool," Sweet Pea said defensively.

"So you're telling me you're just going to quit trying to learn how to whistle because Christopher Plummer didn't do it that way?"

"I fucking know how to whistle!" Sweet Pea argued, pointing a finger aggressively at her. Cheryl raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, waiting out his tantrum.

"Honestly, there aren't that many people you need to memorize a unique whistle for." Cheryl began ticking off Serpents on her fingers, but Sweet Pea was already out the door. Many of his weaker-willed companions followed him, avoiding Cheryl's judgemental stare. Finally, even Fangs―her fellow musical-lover―exited with a shrug. Cheryl groaned in frustration, smooshing her cheeks between her cupped hands.

"Honey, they're restless baby punks," Toni said soothingly, coming up behind her and wrapping her arms around Cheryl's waist. "You can't expect them to just pick up what you want to teach them and then obey you like robots."

Cheryl folded her arms over Toni's, then turned to pull her into a hug.

"I know, but they've already got the matching outfits, just like the von Trapp kids. They're only a couple dozen distinctive whistle patterns away from becoming a cheerful band of musical Nazi-defiers."

"Cher, this is not something I plan to say to you often," Toni began, stepping back and holding Cheryl's wilting, disappointed gaze, "but you need to dream a little smaller. Also, never compare the leather jackets to lederhosen made out of drapes."

Cheryl nodded, primarily agreeing because she was so pleased that her girlfriend had retained a detail from the film she'd forced her to sit through before explaining her plan to teach these snakes a new trick. Where had things fallen apart? Finally, she had thought, something she could contribute to her new family! Cheryl had always had a good ear for pitch and a good mouth for mimicking; she'd spent happy childhood hours in the woods with Jason, echoing bird calls. And it wasn't an impractical skill! She'd thought they could use the whistles during… missions, or whatever they called them, like spies! Signalling secretly to one another.

"Your friends," she started, distancing the Serpents the way she did when she grew annoyed and impatient, "are too busy shoving junk food into their mouths to leave room for anything beautiful to come out of them."

"Fair," Toni said with a breathy chuckle. "Maybe you could show me again…" she leaned close, tracing the tip of her nose up Cheryl's cheek, "…what to do with my mouth."

Instantly, Cheryl flushed and felt a greedy, needy tingle steal up her spine and settle at the back of her head, curling like a cat in the sun. A second later, Toni's fingers dug through her hair and her nails scratched lightly across that spot.

"Now, now, Toni dearest. You and I both know there's no deficit of knowledge there."

Toni grinned, lowering her eyelids and brushing her mouth across Cheryl's; her breath smelled thickly sugary from the powered donut she'd eaten for lunch. Cheryl had wanted to lick that powder from her lips…

Her girlfriend slowly shook her head.

"Come on, babe. Teach me?"

Cheryl couldn't resist, pressing her lips soundly to Toni's and adding her tongue a minute later when a hunger that could not be satisfied by sticky pastries turned their kisses frantic. The only thing Cheryl found more appealing than forcing her expertise on someone else was having them ask for it.


	10. Up and at 'Em

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 46: "I just need to be alone right now."

* * *

"So what are we thinking, doll?" Cheryl asked brightly, leaning forward with her hands on her knees to put herself closer to eye level with the four-year-old perched on the end of the child-sized bed. "The black t-shirt with the sparkly snake on it, or the _trop mignon_ red and white check blouse?"

Ok, so maybe the little girl's moms were staging a _tiny_ , baby, little war over their daughter's wardrobe, and maybe, when it was Cheryl's turn to dress her for the day, she tried hard to influence her towards her own style by throwing in the French words their child clung to like monkey bars, but today, neither of the moms were winning. It was the daughter.

She reacted to Cheryl's enthusiasm by letting her body flop back limply onto the bed, then wiggling her bottom ahead until gravity pulled her over the side. Cheryl observed her puddle of a daughter. The weirdness certainly didn't come from her side of the family. If she later developed tendencies towards pyromania or power-madness, Cheryl would be ready to claim those traits as Blossom.

"Do you need a minute to compose yourself, missy?"

The child released a gigantic, world-weary sigh that raised Cheryl's eyebrows.

"I just need to be alone right now," her daughter requested, making her mother feel like some servant who'd intruded on the broody introspections of a Thomas Hardy heroine. Cheryl closed her eyes for a moment to imagine wind, whipping around an English heath and rustling the stiff, voluminous dress she'd be clad in.

"Ok, but Mom's got waffles for you in the kitchen when you're ready."

Cheryl dropped to the floor and kissed her daughter's forehead, then wiped away the slight transfer from her lipstick.

"Goodbye, Mommy," the child said solemnly, staring up at her with Toni's eyes.

Cheryl left feeling like she'd woken up that morning in a different reality. However, in the kitchen, things were looking much more familiar. Toni had one hand braced against the counter, leaning away from it while she drank coffee from a large mug. Cheryl made an appreciative noise at the sight of her wife's legs extending from the lower hem of an oversized sweatshirt. So only one of the three of them was actually dressed.

"How's the prima donna this morning?" Toni asked with a smirk.

"How did you know?!" Cheryl reached for a croissant from the paper bag she'd brought home from the bakery two hours earlier.

"I tried to wake her up while you were out and was greeted with, 'At this ungodly hour?'"

The two of them cracked up, then Toni slid over to take a bite out of Cheryl's croissant.

"But actually," she mumbled, dragging the protruding end of her bite into her mouth with her tongue, "I meant you."

"Me?" Cheryl tore a piece off her breakfast and dunked it in Toni's coffee. She gave it a few seconds to begin dissolving in her mouth. Yum. Toni'd added cinnamon to the coffee. Cheryl's favourite.

Her wife gave her an amused look.

"Where do you think she gets it from?"

"Gets what?"

"Those dramatic lines! The total self-confidence that permeates the tone in which she delivers them?"

"I don't know. What have you been reading to her lately? _Othello_?"

"Yeah," Toni answered dryly. "It seemed like the natural follow-up to _Rainbow Fish_."

Cheryl shrugged.

"I see it. Both fall under the theme of sharing."

"Explain," Toni challenged, taking a long drink from her mug. She paused, then reached out and fluttered the hem of Cheryl's skirt. "You look cute, by the way. Is this new?"

"It is," Cheryl gushed, flattered. "And the explanation is clearly Rainbow Fish's scales and… Desdemona."

"Explain… more," her wife encouraged, eyes full of skepticism.

"Desdemona," Cheryl repeated like it was obvious. "Othello thinks he's sharing her. That's the whole problem in the play."

Toni nodded slowly, not in a way that said she at all agreed with Cheryl's argument. Cheryl tugged the string of her sweatshirt's hood, pulling the ends out of alignment.

"Hey! No playing dirty!" Toni set her mug down on the counter and moved into an attacking stance.

"Don't you touch me!" Cheryl warned, voice squealing upwards. "I'm the only presentable member of this family and you will not―"

"I will not _what?_ " her wife challenged, wriggling her shoulders like she was getting ready to pounce.

"You will not bring me down to your level!"

Cheryl darted away with a shriek as Toni came at her. They circled the kitchen table once, twice, Cheryl pulling out chairs as she went in an attempt to block her pursuer's path. Into the third lap, their daughter came stampeding from her bedroom and joined right in like she'd been called onto the field during a sporting event and was already part of the team. She raced right along with them, laughing and shouting, over and under the chairs until Toni caught her around the middle and hefted her under one arm.

"And now," their child panted, "waffles."

The moms looked at each other. It seemed as reasonable a progression as any other.


	11. I Love You, and All that Jazz

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 47: "When I picture myself happy… it's with you."

* * *

Toni was wedged comfortably into the corner of the couch. She had Cheryl reclining against her, the back of her head to Toni's chest. She had nowhere else she needed to be. She was neither too hot nor too cold.

She couldn't sit still any longer.

"Hey," she ran her fingers lightly over her girlfriend's bare arm, "you wanna go someplace for a while?"

Cheryl twisted her head to look up at her.

"What? Why?" She laughed.

"I just, uh, maybe wanted to talk to you."

"You can talk to me here," Cheryl assured her, wriggling back into position. "My home is your home. Where else would we want to be?"

"I don't know. We could…go for a walk, drive to the river―"

"You just ordered a pizza not five minutes ago. And _Chicago_ 's coming on TV in half an hour, remember? We were gonna watch."

"But I thought… someplace special…" Toni could've torn her own hair out. Cheryl was probably finding her totally intolerable right now! She hated when people didn't speak eloquently or took too long coming to the point.

Cheryl sat up and turned to face her.

"You _are_ my someplace special," she insisted, taking Toni's hand.

Too restless to be as swept away by her girlfriend's sentimentality as she usually was, Toni pulled away and stood.

"I should've waited," she said, speaking her frustrated realization aloud. "If I was you and you were me, there would've been a great plan and perfect timing and some sort of surprise."

"Well, I have no idea what's going on," Cheryl contributed. "Does that count?"

Toni groaned.

"You deserve something spectacular. You _are_ spectacular." She grabbed the arm of the couch and made herself stop pacing, barely aware that she'd started. "You said yes to joining the gang right away and―"

Cheryl raised a single finger to pause her and Toni immediately halted her rambling.

"This is about me becoming a Serpent," she clarified.

Toni shrugged.

"You're feeling guilty about me becoming a Serpent."

"A little," Toni admitted, giving her girlfriend an earnest stare. "I feel like you're doing so much for me by joining and after I suggested it, it went ahead so quickly that I never really had a chance to tell you what it meant to me."

Cheryl was shaking her head.

"You don't have to say anything," she promised. "You wanting me in the gang was enough."

"I do though!" Toni insisted, crouching to take both Cheryl's hands in her own while her girlfriend gave her an encouraging smile. "When I picture myself happy… it's with you. I needed you in the gang because I need to have you near me."

"We do have a knack for protecting each other," Cheryl agreed.

"Not just that," she countered seriously. "I don't only want to see you at school, or during cheerleading practice, or when one of us gets attacked by a murderer or a psycho ex-Serpent."

"Good point. How many more of those do you guys have floating around?" Cheryl joked. Toni sighed, leaning forward to touch her forehead fleetingly to her girlfriend's knees.

"I'm in love with you, Cheryl," she confessed, probing her brown eyes with her own. "Every day, I wake up and remember how much."

Instead of answering in words, her girlfriend fell forward off the couch and into Toni's arms, squeezing her tight.

"I hoped that you were," she murmured next to Toni's ear.

She grabbed Cheryl's face and kissed her.

"You'll never stand alone," Toni vowed as she drew back. Cheryl clasped their hands together, firmly linking their fingers.

"In unity," she recited, "there is strength."


	12. Convertible

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 32: "This is, by far, the dumbest thing you've ever done."

A Hogwarts AU!

* * *

The early blue sky was sweet above, the pitch lustrous as a green glass bottle below. It was spring and 10 minutes until Quaffle-drop, with few matches left to play before the top two teams could be determined and sent to the Quidditch Cup final. Today was Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw, but at this point in the season, every House had a stake in the outcome. As a devoted Quidditch fan, Cheryl had already picked the team she wanted to win. As a Slytherin, she would make sure they did just that.

"This is, by far, the dumbest thing you've ever done," Toni informed her in the narrow hallway between the changing rooms and the entrance to the pitch.

"Hey," Cheryl shot back, "aren't you supposed to be a Hufflepuff? Easy on the criticism, babe." She tossed her hair and tightened her grip on the broom she held upright in her hand. "Don't make them re-Sort you."

"With only one year to go?" Toni snorted. "I doubt it."

"Well, then just be nicer for the sake of my nerves."

" _Your_ nerves?" Sweet Pea cut in, slipping as stealthily from the changing room as a broad-shouldered, over six-foot tall teenager dressed all in red was capable of. "I'm the one who has to fly the thing."

With a deep breath, Cheryl thrust the broom into the boy's hands.

"Red?" he asked, eyeing the length of it, handle to tail.

"Hello," Cheryl pointed out, gesturing to his outfit, "you're a Gryffindor!"

Sweet Pea narrowed his eyes. She sighed.

"Fine, the paint job was the one thing I couldn't transfigure."

"You're too attached to the original object," Toni pronounced in a sympathetic tone, hugging Cheryl to her side.

"Couldn't someone else have done the colour?" Sweet Pea looked a little queasy, which Cheryl chose to attribute to him eating something greasy for breakfast, or simply being filled with the trademark Gryffindor can-do attitude. Disgusting.

"No, idiot," she informed him with a roll of her eyes. Toni side-eyed her.

"Cheryl's at the top of our class for Transfiguration," was her gentler reminder to her hulking friend. "You couldn't be in better hands." _Sure_ , Cheryl thought, _now she squeezes out some Hufflepuff sweetness_.

"It's not hands that I'm worried about if this goes wrong," he said nervously. "It's what's between my legs." He inspected the broom again. Cheryl, frankly, was feeling a little insulted.

"Just focus on defending those hoops and you'll forget all about the possibility of the broom turning back into a convertible," she suggested flatly.

"That's a _small_ possibility, right?" Toni muttered quickly in her ear. Cheryl did something close to a nod, with enough vagueness to allow her to later deny she'd nodded, if things went badly wrong.

Sweet Pea was nodding to himself with his eyes shut, evidently bolstering his sense of House courage.

"It'll work," he declared. "Ravenclaw won't get a shot past me."

"That's what your captain likes to hear!" Archie exclaimed, emerging from the changing room with the rest of the Gryffindors trailing him. He slapped Sweet Pea's shoulder. "Last minute 'good luck' wishes?" he asked the girls, earnest eyes going from one face to the other.

"Oh, you know," Toni offered. "Fingers crossed!"

Cheryl faked a cough to cover her laugh. The last thing she'd do was leave something up to chance and superstitious ritual.

"Excellent," Archie, Chaser and Gryffindor Captain, proclaimed. "See you in a minute?" he asked Sweet Pea, giving him a steady stare. The other boy nodded firmly and the rest of his team went to stand by the field entrance, awaiting Josie's commentating voice announcing their team.

"It'll work," Cheryl quietly promised Sweet Pea, glancing over at his teammates as she repeated what he'd said a minute before. "The broom should share all my convertible's best characteristics: speed, maneuverability, the feel of the wind in your hair. Almost makes me jealous."

"You? Green?" he teased.

"Ugh," she complained, waving him away. She'd heard enough Slytherin jokes to last a lifetime, most coming from Gryffindors. Sweet Pea went with an exuberant jog.

"We better get up into the stands. I do _not_ want to miss this," Toni said. "Plus, Fangs is waiting for me to fill him in."

With a tight hug, they separated, Cheryl clutching the ends of her silver and green striped scarf as she pounded up the stairs to the Slytherin section. She glared a giggling pair of first years out of the way so she could stand beside Veronica.

"Who are you cheering for?" her friend asked, expectation in her voice. No question as to the allegiance of the girlfriend of Gryffindor's Captain.

"Gryffindor," Cheryl hissed to her, leaning in. "But don't spread it around. There's the House prejudice to uphold."

"Which I know you take very seriously," Veronica answered solemnly, though her mouth betrayed a smirk.

"It's my favourite extracurricular," Cheryl agreed, eyes moving to the field as Madam Hooch emerged with the Quaffle, whistle already between her lips.

With the speed and agility of Archie and the other two Gryffindor chasers, the play was kept so much in Ravenclaw's end that Cheryl almost forgot about Sweet Pea, hovering in front of Gryffindor's hoops. Unfortunately, there was a limit to the length of time the lions could keep the pressure on the eagles and eventually, like a bungled potion, that pressure was released in a dangerous burst. A Ravenclaw chaser―Joaquin it looked like, though he was moving too fast for Cheryl to be certain―came streaking out, ducking the Bludger that red-clad Kevin sent whistling in his direction. Sweet Pea leaned towards his attacker. The crowd leaned closer to the rail.

And the broom? The broom took on another characteristic of Cheryl's convertible, doing precisely what she would've done had she been driving and had an object come hurtling towards her. The broom let out a sustained wailing _BEEP_.


	13. Stranded

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 60: "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me."

* * *

"You should've filled up at that gas station we passed!" Toni complained, banging her head back against the headrest.

"Excuse me?" Cheryl shot back, still gripping the wheel though she'd already pulled onto the shoulder and cut the engine. "We're patrolling for Ghoulies, remember? What would we have done if a bunch of them had walked out of the store with their arms full of snacks while you were pumping?"

Toni stared at her, mouth dropping open in disbelief.

"What we would have done is not the only problem in that sentence. Why would _I_ be the one pumping gas? It's _your_ car."

"No point worrying about that now," Cheryl instructed flippantly, pushing her door open.

Still in her seat, Toni rolled her eyes and watched the newest Serpent circle around to the front of her convertible and pop the hood. She joined her after half a minute. Cheryl was a little tough to swallow, especially when Toni's mouth went dry observing the redhead bending over her car's innards in those high-waisted, red shorts…

Cheryl slammed the hood shut.

"Diagnosis?" Toni asked, crossing her arms in an attempt to pull herself together.

"We're definitely out of gas, but beyond that? No idea." She went back to the car, leaning over the closed driver's side door to retrieve her phone.

"Who you calling? A mechanic?"

"Better," Cheryl assured her with a wink as she held the phone to her ear. "I'm calling Betty."

Ok, it was stupid to feel jealous over that, especially since somebody, at some point, had told Toni the girls were cousins. But still, look what had happened between Polly and Jason. Toni hovered by the side of the road, waiting out Cheryl's short call.

"My sweet cousin is prepared to be of assistance."

"Great," Toni said without enthusiasm, staring up into the flat blue summer sky. A lone car whizzed past in the far lane.

"But she's babysitting the twins at the moment, so first she has to wait for her mom to get home to take over. It might be a little while."

"So… we're stranded," Toni concluded, leaning against the side of the car.

Cheryl gave her a look.

"Start walking if you want. We're only, oh, five miles outside of town."

Toni sighed, mostly for show, since she really wasn't looking for a reason to leave Cheryl alone out here. For safety purposes, of course.

"Realizing you're stuck with me, huh?" Cheryl guessed, sending Toni a smirk. "Get back in the car."

"Has anybody ever told you you're pretty bossy?"

"Only since they assumed I was old enough to understand it," she responded breezily, taking her seat. Toni smiled to herself and climbed back in as well.

"Ooh!" Cheryl added. "I just remembered I have strawberries!"

Shifting, Cheryl got to her knees and squeezed between the two front seats, her side brushing Toni's shoulder as she reached into the back. Cheryl settled back and offered Toni a container of fresh berries. Toni took one, keeping her eyes on the other girl's face.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me."

Cheryl laughed and bit into a strawberry. There was no denial, but Toni, perpetually wary of making a fool of herself, felt compelled to state the evidence.

"You ask me to go with you on this sweep," she began, holding up fingers to keep a tally as she went. "You don't stop for gas, though you pay enough attention to this car that I'm sure you noticed you were almost on empty. The car has a mysterious issue. When you call the person you trust to solve that issue, they can't come right away. Meaning we're stuck here, you and me, and then you also _happen_ to have strawberries!"

"You caught me," Cheryl replied in a voice of playful sarcasm. "I planned it all around the technique of extremely short-term Stockholm Syndrome, because you can't leave this car. Except, oh wait," she made her eyes wide in a feigned epiphany, "you can unlock your own door!"

Toni was preparing to admit her assumption might have been paranoid when Cheryl shoved the strawberry container into her hands and leaned across her lap to demonstrate the unlocking of the door.

"See?" she shot out, turning her face to Toni's and abruptly stopping, her gaze going to Toni's mouth.

"I think I do now." Hesitantly, Toni reached out and tucked Cheryl's long hair back behind her ear.

Cheryl, suddenly quiet, sunk back into her seat. They both stared straight ahead, like they were at a drive-in with no screen, just fields, trees, and the old, oft-patched road into Riverdale. At the same moment, they inched their hands over and their pinkies touched. Toni hoped Betty never found them.


	14. Lesson Learned

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 49: "I may be an idiot, but I'm your idiot."; prompt 12: "Say it!"; prompt 31: "You weren't supposed to laugh!"; and prompt 88: "See, now, was that so bad?"

Beware, this one's a touch more adult than the others.

* * *

From the seats directly behind Toni's came the voices. Third time in the last fifteen minutes, according to her laptop. She closed her eyes in annoyance for a few seconds, then opened them to find her place in the notes she was currently taking. At the front of the hall, Cheryl Blossom―Toni's girlfriend and the ambitious young professor of Sidewalk Chalk: Murder and the Small Town Psyche―continued the lecture. It was just her third in the elective one-semester Criminology course, yet Cheryl's class had filled after word spread about her thrilling first presentation; telling the story of the time she'd shot the Black Hood serial killer with an arrow really put butts in seats. Toni already showed up early, but lately she'd had to defend her territory with implied aggression, slinging her Serpents jacket over her chair with the symbol visible to all and her combat boots propped heavily on the back of the chair one tier down from her in the auditorium.

Today, however, it wasn't space she felt the need to defend as much as Professor Blossom up at the front, animated and commanding as ever, while the jerks behind Toni fucking whispered and muttered through their instructor's brilliant and surprising insights.

"It was her brother," the one guy hissed to his buddy. "This chic's got some kind of complex 'cause her brother got wacked."

"He didn't get wacked, dumbass," the other kid replied―finally, Toni thought, the gossiping was coming to an end. "That's like in the mob. It was the dad."

Toni ground her teeth together, fingers stilling over her keys.

"Huh?" Apparently the first boy hadn't been listening. Possibly paying attention to the lecture for a brief second. How fucking novel. Toni tilted her head to the side sharply, cracking her neck. "The dad was in the mob?"

"No, the dad did it. Total psycho." He snorted in laughter. With almost painful concentration, Toni saved the document she'd been typing her notes into. "Makes you wonder how close the school checked the daughter out before hiring her."

"Alright, asshole," Toni snapped, twisting around in her seat. "Time to shut your mouth before I climb over this chair and shut it for you."

The pair exchanged glances, then the cockier of the two crossed his arms and smirked down at her.

"Get your hearing checked. The only one talking is you, so quit disrupting my education."

"I heard you, you piece of shit," Toni hissed, barely noticing that heads were starting to turn in her direction. "You better start showing Professor Blossom some respect."

"Gee, Dan," the moron joked, looking to his brainless companion, "what're we supposed to do? Stand up and applaud every five minutes?"

"I heard what you said," she repeated, feeling like her eyeballs were about to catch fire, so powerful was the hatred of her gaze.

"Didn't say anything." Condescending eyes. Arrogant shrug.

"No," Toni goaded, "go ahead. Say something else about her. Go on. Say it," she spat, then, "SAY IT!"

All little sounds in the room died. Wincing, Toni heard Cheryl's clear, strong voice trail off. She rotated back in her seat and snapped her laptop shut.

"Please leave," the professor spoke firmly, but calmly.

Cheeks burning with embarrassment and anger, Toni stuffed her things into her bag and rose quickly. She whipped her jacket from the back of her chair to drape it over her shoulder. In motion, Toni heard the zipper connect with something with a click and a scrape and hoped she'd just scratched the screen of the dickhead's laptop. It would have to do, she thought, booting the door at the top of the lecture hall open with her foot while she felt everyone's stares. It would have to do because she had better things to do besides wait around until class ended and kick the kid's ass up and down the foot court.

An hour and a quarter later, sitting in the Crim professors' hallway with her bag at her side and her knees bent up in front of her, Toni listened to Cheryl's heels approaching. Without looking up, she followed her girlfriend's movements. The zip of her purse. The extraction of office door keys. The key in the lock. The squeak of old wood being forced open. Toni got to her feet and trailed Cheryl in, catching the door as fingers with red nails released it.

For a full minute, they sat across the desk from each other and stared. Toni felt like she was back in the principal's office in public school, one of the many times she'd taken the blame for something Fangs or Sweet Pea had done; it was to even things out, since they were punished much more often than she was. Honestly, this situation didn't feel so different. It had been those two bastards behind her, not her.

"So," Cheryl finally began, "you were an idiot in my class."

Toni exhaled hard through her nose.

"I may be an idiot, but I'm your idiot. I was defending you."

"I can defend myself," Cheryl insisted, smoothing her hair over her shoulder.

"They'll just come back to the next class and do it again. Talk about you like you're a freak, nothing but a headline. Or somebody else will." Toni gripped the edge of the desk hard, leaning towards her girlfriend as she tried to make her understand. Sometimes you had to stand up to these people. It was the Serpent way.

"They probably will," Cheryl tranquilly conceded. "And the next class, and the next, and the next, and then they'll get back their exam results and find they scored a good 15% below what they'd thought." She gave Toni a little frown of fake disappointment. Toni raised her eyebrows.

"That's unethical."

"What's unethical is the mandate in this program to weigh the exam so highly that a grade below 50 means you fail the whole course. Pair that with the university-wide bell curving system and, well," Cheryl shrugged heartlessly, "those poor boys really don't stand a chance."

Toni grinned and threw herself back in the stiff chair reserved for office hour visitors.

"How silly of me to forget you always play the long game. I'm impressed."

Cheryl sent her a critical glance.

"Perhaps not as much as you should be. You caused a disturbance in my class today, Miss Topaz. I can't have you so ardently devoting yourself to my protection. It's bad enough the faculty knows we're friends. More than that and we could be in serious trouble."

Rising from her seat, Cheryl circled the desk and sat on its edge, legs crossed in front of Toni.

"Well, what do you suggest?" Toni asked slyly, eyeing her girlfriend's legs.

"Since having you write lines presents the problem of chalk never quite rubbing off of a blackboard, you will instead repeat what I say."

Toni waved a hand to signal she was ready. Cheryl straightened up, but stretched her leg out, letting the toe of her shoe trace up Toni's shin.

"Say, 'I will not interrupt Ms. Blossom's class again.'"

Toni repeated.

"Say, 'I will remain calm and trust in Ms. Blossom to dole out punishment to those who deserve it.'"

Toni repeated.

"Say, 'If I fail to obey Ms. Blossom, I recognize that I too will deserve to be punished and will submit to her completely at the time and in the manner of her choosing.'"

Toni started to repeat, but giggles bubbled up her throat, devolving into uncontrolled cackles.

"You weren't supposed to laugh!" Cheryl complained, giving Toni's shin a quick kick.

"Oh, come on!" she protested. "The dirty teacher/student routine? A little obvious, don't you think?"

"You can't expect me to be in this position and not take advantage of its potential applications for our sex life," Cheryl argued, tossing her long hair. "I know you let me win our fights, but how many times in our lives am I going to have legitimate authority over you. Doesn't it turn you on? Even a little?"

Toni narrowed her eyes skeptically.

"It's dated."

" _I'm_ not." Locking eyes with her girlfriend, Cheryl began to unbutton her red blouse. Toni rolled her eyes.

"This is too much for me." She rose from her chair, grabbing her bag. Staring hard at the closed door, Toni wanted to reach for the knob, turn it, and exit. She wanted to prove Cheryl wrong. Her arms remained lowered.

"Is it?" Cheryl wondered, coming up behind her and grabbing one of Toni's wrists. With a gentle pull, she turned Toni to face her. Aggressively, Cheryl backed her into the door. Toni forgot what she was supposed to be arguing and kissed her, sliding her hands into her girlfriend's open top.

"Is this too much?" Cheryl asked again, drawing out of their kiss, her face still close to Toni's.

"No," Toni admitted quietly, running her fingers through Cheryl's hair as her girlfriend moved to kiss her neck.

"Is this?"

"No," Toni gasped when she felt teeth.

"This?" Cheryl's hands leapt up to cup Toni's breasts through her t-shirt. Her chest heaved.

"No."

"So this 'dated' teacher/student thing…" Cheryl spoke against Toni's neck, "… it might be something you could enjoy?"

Toni nodded, running her hands around to Cheryl's back, looking for the clasp of her bra.

"See, now, was that so bad?" Her girlfriend wondered.

"Feels a lot better than flunking my exam would," Toni agreed with a grin, nudging her lips to Cheryl's.


	15. Polished Ladies

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 14: "Are you done with that?"

* * *

"What is going on here?" Cheryl demanded, flapping her hands in an effort to speed the drying of her nail polish.

"Are you done with that?" Toni asked, already swiping the crimson bottle and proceeding to give it a vigorous shake to exorcise any gloopiness. "I wanna do my toes."

"Hello, are you listening to me?"

Toni's eyes rolled up to put her girlfriend―perched before her vanity―in her line of sight. She bent her knee to get a good angle for painting her toenails, feeling the soft carpet she was sitting on slide thickly beneath her bare foot.

"I heard you. If the disorientation persists, you might want to crack a window. Nail polish fumes," Toni commiserated as she twisted the bottle open and jerked her head away from the smell.

"Ugh," Cheryl complained. "I know where I am, and _you_ know that isn't what I meant."

"Well, to what were you referring?" Toni wondered, turning her gaze downward and raising her eyebrows in both inquiry and increased focus as she began to apply the first coat.

"This!" her girlfriend all but shrieked. "This travesty of a slumber party!"

"Ok, harsh." Cautiously, she wiped a blob of red polish off the end of her toe where she'd overshot the nail.

"I'm serious." Cheryl slumped to the ground, all cherry pout and royal blue silk robe, like she was Scarlett O'Hara. Toni stared at her, awaiting the diatribe. "We should be plotting our next Serpent misadventure or taking down a crime boss, and what are we doing?" Toni kept her mouth shut, able to hear Cheryl's rhetorical questions when they approached with a clear Doppler effect. "We're sitting here in our pajamas, painting our nails, about to watch _Miss Congeniality_!"

"Shut up," Toni shot back, wounded. She scooped a large quantity of popcorn into her hand from a nearby bowl and stuffed it into her mouth. "I love Sandra Bullock," she said around her mouthful.

Cheryl sighed loudly.

"All that's missing is a pillow fight and a good, long make out session and this would be exactly the kind of sleepover teen perverts the world over would be expecting a girl/girl couple to have."

Toni swallowed her popcorn and rubbed her buttery fingers clean on her thigh.

"I'm no more interested in getting smacked in the face with a pillow than you are, but a make out session sounds good to me," she proposed, scooting towards Cheryl with her still-wet toes pointed skyward.

Her girlfriend halted Toni with a swiftly and inarguably raised finger.

"Brush your teeth first, then we'll talk."

"Better idea." Toni grabbed the bowl and thrust it at Cheryl. "You eat some too, then our mouths will taste the same."

Cheryl crossed her arms to prevent Toni from passing the container into her hands.

"Toni, my love," she began in a tone Toni recognized as dangerous fed-up-ness, "have you ever heard the phrase 'two wrongs don't make a right'?"

Staring hard into her eyes, Toni grabbed a fistful of popcorn and shoved it in, crunching noisily as Cheryl made sounds of acute frustration.

"Alright, fine," her girlfriend conceded, moving to sit next to Toni and starting the movie on the screen across from them.

"Yaaaay!" Toni sang out softly, nestling close to rest her cheek on Cheryl's shoulder.

When her girlfriend failed to relax into her like she usually did, remaining rigid in both face and body, Toni kissed her cheek.

"You're _my_ Miss Congeniality," she pledged. Cheryl's shrewd gaze darted sideways.

"Just shut up and pass the popcorn."

With a satisfied grin, Toni obliged, feeling the comforting weight of her girlfriend slumping warmly into her side.


	16. What's Her Damage?

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 28: "That's almost exactly the opposite of what I meant." and prompt 83: "Just once."

* * *

It was a beautiful day―great for swimming, or biking, or drinking lemonade… or learning the pastimes of the rich.

"My, my," Cheryl said smoothly, appraising their field of play. "Looks like it'll just be a few more good whacks. Toni, my darling, if you would."

With an elegant flick of her fingers, Cheryl directed Toni to take aim at her croquet ball. Toni assessed her options. Despite her girlfriend's eager coaching, this game was still new to her, the motion of the swing unfamiliar. Her novice abilities had caused her last too-weak shot to roll backwards through the wicket she'd been trying to clear, listing her green ball right up next to Cheryl's red one.

The end was near, alright, and victory was sure to belong to the confident lady in red… unless Toni did something about it.

She gripped her mallet and, instead of precisely spreading her stance, she put one foot down on her ball and walloped it, the heavy wood going _clack_ as it crashed into Cheryl's ball and sent it flying. Impossible to deny that the shot was impressive, and Toni whistled as she watched the ball. Cheryl wasn't as pleased.

"What the hell was that? What happened to your posture? Your sense of sportsmanship? Didn't I teach you those things?"

"Yep," Toni assented, observing her girlfriend's horrified face, "but _that_ I learned watching _Heathers_."

"You know what? I am truly mortified by your behaviour." Cheryl offered her nothing but a severe frown.

Toni snorted in laughter. The whole scary routine her girlfriend had perfected was great, very amusing, but it had been honed on Northsiders; Serpents didn't frighten so easily.

"You said a few good whacks," she reminded the disgruntled redhead. "I'm just doing what I'm told." Toni smirked.

Cheryl groaned. Loudly and with passion.

"That's almost exactly the opposite of what I meant."

"Come on," Toni cajoled, "it'll be more fun this way. Makes the game last longer." She barely managed to hold in a laugh as Cheryl stomped past her, expression murderous, to position herself for her shot.

It was fortunate that Toni had the foresight to give Cheryl's likely line of attack a wide clearance because, when her girlfriend hit that ball, she hit it hard. Eyebrows raised, Toni offered the performance a civilized golf clap, then hitched her mallet over her shoulder, casually considering her next shot. Another competitive overture might actually set her girlfriend's hair alight.

As it was, Cheryl was clearly still staggering down the treacherous mountain of the thwarted, giving Toni reproachful eyes as she followed her red ball back to the main of their area of play.

"Don't stand like that," Cheryl commanded. "You look like a common labourer."

Smile broad, Toni bent to find a wilder blade of grass that had missed the mower's attention. She plucked it and put it between her teeth, giving Cheryl a wink as she straightened up.

" _Ugh_." She rolled her eyes. "Get on with it, Huckleberry Finn."

Toni shrugged and made her play, going the correct direction through the wicket this time, and most of the way to the peg.

"Yes!"

Cheryl tossed her hair and moved to take her own swing―though first, she took one at Toni's backside.

"HEY!" Toni yelped through her surprised laughter. "I believe that's improper use of a croquet mallet! Let me see the rulebook!"

Smiling, Cheryl sent her ball forward, just not quite far enough. With the gentlest, tamest, most restrained of hits, Toni tapped the peg to win the game. She flung her mallet aside and jumped at Cheryl with arms spread open. The reception was a lukewarm pat on the back. Frowning, Toni pulled away.

"I lost," Cheryl said sadly. "I can't believe I lost."

"Just once," Toni consoled her. "You're still the best. You'd put the Queen of Hearts to shame." She gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, which Cheryl acknowledged with a reluctant smile.

"I _am_ proud of you," she admitted, tucking Toni's curled hair behind her ears and caressing her face. "You showed a remarkable combination of poise and aggression in that match." Cheryl gave her a probing look and Toni's face fell in worry. "I think you're ready for archery."

"Oh no," Toni argued, "No, no, no, no, no. Trust me, I'm not. I'll break a window, or puncture one of your tires, or hit the TV―right through Bob Ross's face while Nana Rose is watching," she rambled, panicking.

"Well, first of all," Cheryl pointed out dryly, "you won't be shooting _towards_ the house, so none of those are even a possibility."

Toni whined, letting her girlfriend lead her away by the hand.

"Why can't you just fight off bad guys with brass knuckles like a normal person?"

"Ah, ah, ah," Cheryl chided. " _Tomorrow's_ your day for sharing. Which means today is…"

"Shirley Temples," Toni supplied.

"And…?"

"Croquet."

"And…?"

Toni sighed.

"Archery."


	17. Something About the Weather

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 18: "I shouldn't be in love with you." and prompt 26: "I think I've been holding myself back from falling in love with you all over again."

* * *

Toni was cutting across backroads and zigzagging towards Riverdale on a dismal cloud of dust, crunching gravel chips under her wheels loud enough to half-drown Freddie Mercury's vocals as he sang to her through the old radio about wanting to break free. The rickety truck was step one―bartered from a pair of gawky adolescent male scrapyard attendants about 300 miles ago in exchange for her jacket (they thought the snake stitched to the back was cool) and a thick enough layer of eye flirting to frost a three-tier wedding cake. She'd snapped the keys into her closing fist before one of them could embarrass himself by asking to take her out. Yeah right. Even with nine years gone in her absence, there was still only one person Toni would take a trip like this for.

When she eased onto roads with more reliable upkeep, she drove less aggressively. Something in her was pushing her forward just a little bit harder than it was pulling her back. Back was the life she'd been living with her grandpa since they moved away to escape the Ghoulie threat. Toni knew the man had been proud of his land and his identity, but that he had been happier, at his age, to carry those things inside of himself. Anyway, he was dead now. Heart troubles ran in the family.

The Riverdale outer limits sign appeared like it was coming towards her instead of her towards it. Toni hand-cranked her window down and stuck her arm way out, fingers spread, to catch the light that seemed to have broken through the clouds just as she passed into town. She knew she'd have to do something to get her other arm exposed at some point; now that she wasn't perpetually clad in her Serpent skin, the arm she'd rested on the car door had deepened in colour over the journey.

Pop's was calling, but Toni opted for the drive-thru lane of the first fast food chain she passed and ate in the truck, letting her scrunched napkins form a detrital base where rubber floor mats should have been. Food, sunlight, recuperation: that was step two. She re-parked the truck in the far corner of the lot and laid down across both front seats, positioning her arm over her face to protect her eyes from the stellar glow that was bright white when she looked straight up through the windshield. She slept―grateful to be short enough that her quarters didn't necessitate contortions.

Groggy but awake in the midafternoon, a weaker woman would've ended the day right there and set aside her denial in order to convince herself that _tomorrow_ was the day. Tomorrow, not today, was the day for doing great deeds and going in search of the snipped ends of her old life. Not Toni. She started up the truck and winced as she forced it into gear, then drove for Thistle House. The whole way, she hoped two things: that Cheryl would still live there, and that Cheryl had moved far away and forgotten all about her when the cotton candy-haired spitfire of a Serpent had turned out to be a coward.

She swung open the heavy door in the driveway, then slammed it shut again when it felt like she was going to puke. Step three. Legs shaking ferociously, Toni let her forehead slump to the steering wheel. What was she doing here? What the _hell_ was she doing here? Anxiety and a breeze through her lowered window as the weather shifted raised goosebumps up and down Toni's bare arms. A hollow, fathomless knock on the truck's door made her scream.

"Are you actually going to get out?" Cheryl asked.

Staring at her made Toni's throat close up and created an intense desire to backwards somersault across the seats to escape through the passenger door.

"Yeah," she said after a minute, focusing on the way the fine skin below Cheryl's gorgeous eyes had tightened in an almost invisible expression of pain.

"You know," Cheryl began, leading Toni around the side of the house, "I thought you might come."

"Today," Toni wondered, "or ever?"

It was a tough thing to ask, but she thought she might as well. Cheryl sat on a patio bench, fingering a strand of shoulder-length red hair. When had she cut it? Why? Toni sat down beside her―not too close.

"Today. Something about the weather."

Both girls looked skyward to see navy clouds bobbing in on fickle tides of air. Toni curled her legs under the bench, as though to hang on if a rogue twister decided to fling the lawn furniture into the air.

"Nana Rose―"

"―has gone beyond where inclement weather can faze her," Cheryl informed her with lowered head. "Not that it ever did."

"I'm sorry, Cheryl," Toni said, touching her hand for just a few seconds. "Deeply."

She didn't reply to that, but she did ask, "Your grandfather?"

"The same," Toni replied with a sigh, wanting to lean back in her seat, yet holding herself stiffly forward. She studied the multi-hued pea gravel at her feet. Losing him didn't hurt her so much anymore. "He couldn't help going though. I could have."

She looked across at Cheryl and wanted to sob with shame.

"I've never judged you for it," the redhead told her softly, making Toni inch closer to hear her as the wind rose. "I may not have felt loyalty to all of my family members, but I can still understand. You had to go with him."

"I didn't," she argued quietly as the trees bordering the property shook and swayed.

"You were restless," Cheryl said. It was hard to tell, listening to her tone, if she was angry about that.

"I was stupid," Toni corrected, and a good kind of ache throbbed around her heart. "I did it so… casually. It seemed better, at the time, to act blasé about taking off. Just another wayward Serpent."

"You were never that person though."

"No," Toni agreed. "Not really."

"I was scared for you," Cheryl raised her voice to say. Toni turned to her and struggled not to smooth back the hair that kept whipping across the woman's face, darting between her lips.

"And I was just scared. I didn't move on, I ran."

They sat in their own silence while nature warmed up her orchestra.

"Should we get these inside?" Toni wondered at a half-shout, gesturing to the patio furniture beginning to skitter across the ground. Cheryl nodded and quickly, they stacked chairs and dragged everything through the back door. Thunder cracked in their ears before Cheryl got the door closed, everything piled just inside, crowding the little hallway.

They were staring at each other while the room became darker and darker. Toni had the thought that they might trip over the jumble of objects soon if they didn't turn some lights on or move to another part of the house, but any motion felt like running. She'd come all this way to be here, after all. Right here, with her hair knotted and antique chairs poking into the back of her leg.

Cheryl took one little step and Toni got in her way, blocking the path.

"I know why I didn't call. Or text, or message, or Skype," she added, gaze not releasing Cheryl's. "Why I didn't visit. I couldn't acknowledge that we weren't together anymore."

"Could you have?"

Thunder.

"No." Toni was shaking her head so regularly that it was difficult to stop. "Because as soon as I did any of those things, I would've realized."

Cheryl's lip trembled. _Don't hurt me_ , it said. _Don't you dare disappoint me_.

"I think I've been holding myself back from falling in love with you all over again."

Toni didn't have to wonder long whether she'd actually managed to say those words or only imagined she had because Cheryl threw her arms around her neck and hung on.

"I hate you," she wept, getting the side of Toni's face and down her neck all wet. "I need you and I _hate_ that feeling."

Toni ran her hands over Cheryl's back, feeling the track of her vertebrae like good cutlery aligned in a cabinet drawer.

"I know you do," she promised. "I'm so sorry I let you down."

Cheryl pulled back, grabbing Toni's shoulders with tears still in her eyes, her fingers twisting the short sleeves of Toni's t-shirt.

"I shouldn't be in love with you."

Who was Toni to tell this woman what she should want or how much she deserved? It really wasn't her who could say that she wasn't enough for Cheryl. She stood and listened instead.

"It's lonely here," Cheryl told her, and Toni let her reach out to fussily rearrange her long pink hair. "And I've been thinking about people."

"People?"

"About how few people we really get in our lives. How small that number is that we seem to be allowed."

"Makes it hard to believe there are billions of us," Toni answered.

"So," Cheryl continued pragmatically, "I plan to hang onto you this time."

She kept fixing Toni's hair, eyes on her fingers. This gave Toni a few seconds' head start in her crying, half a dozen tears sliding to her chin before the first watery noise burst from her lips and she slumped forward into her girlfriend's arms.

The next time Toni noticed the thunder, it was a small, pocket-sized sound, like a ball rolling off a step.

"You think it'll rain?" she asked.

Cheryl looked steadily out the back door, her arm curved possessively around Toni's waist. The pale returning light made her eyes shine.

"Might just blow over."


	18. Shadow Play

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 51: "I see the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking."

A _Peter Pan_ AU!

* * *

"Josie," said Cheryl to the fairy, "help my Lost Girls have good dreams."

Glowing like one of the stars painted on the ceiling of their world-sized playroom (which Cheryl had not yet managed to touch, no matter how far and how fast she flew straight up), Josie sparked from one bunk to the next, dusting each Girl with that fine pixie powder that will, yes, often make one sneeze, but will always, 101% of the time, make one have excellently nonsensical dreams. Josie tiptoed the narrow limb to Midge's bed, who slept small like she was packed in a box; she parted the willow branch curtains where the Cooper sisters reclined head to head, blonde hair in one bright jumble under Josie's glimmer; she scaled with bounding fairy strides and deft flaps of her wings to the tree top where rested Veronica, who always needed a little more dusting than the rest.

To each of these Girls and more, Josie applied her pixie dust, but Cheryl saw none of this, doing a lazy before-bed backstroke through a low, friendly cloud. Only she wasn't going to bed, she was going to Mermaid Lagoon. For show, Cheryl did circle the forest several times, then darted swiftly off with a grin, because it was almost as fun to fool one's Lost Girls as it was to fool one's enemies (in her case, the fierce pirate Black Hood, but he will be discussed another time).

As she flew, sweeping farther and farther from the little twinkles of Hangman's Tree, Cheryl's mischief twisted in her mind, turning her bad-tempered and undesirous of company. She swooped low and gathered rocks in both grasping fists. Upon reaching the Lagoon, she let each stone fall with a _plop_ or a _bloop_ , wheeling fanatically in the air as the tails of startled mermaids struck the surface before flipping under and leaving the water flat and blue. Only then did Cheryl dart down, quick and straight like an arrow, to perch upon a large rock and lean out over the lagoon, listening.

Every Lost Girl knew that silence was a vile and unnatural thing, best put to a swift and merciless death by laughter, screams, or any other sort of ruckus. Of course, the two exceptions were for hiding and hunting, and Cheryl wasn't quite sure which was she was doing, but she knew she wasn't alone.

She let her eyes follow the flashing neverbugs upwards and noticed that the sleepy nighttime clouds were gradually parting (as friends or foes, Cheryl could not tell). Behind these disintegrating wisps was the blue-blackness of the sky, and in the sky was one of Neverland's numerous moons―whiter and cleaner than anything the Girls had in any of their hideouts. Indeed, cleaner than the Lost Girls themselves. The light streamed down like poured water.

 _Now I have you_ , Cheryl thought, keeping her narrowing eyes on that luminous sky-dot until the very last second, then jumping and whirling around. Stretched out along the rock, her shadow threw its arms out in fright before mimicking Cheryl's commanding posture, hands on hips.

"Too slow," Cheryl mocked, wagging a finger and snarling when the shadow wagged it back at her. She did a triumphant skip, wanting to dance, but knowing she must not put her back to this trickster now that she had finally caught it in its deceitful performance.

"I see the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking," she apprised the shadow, crossing her arms tightly the way she'd seen the pirates do when they were acting tough. Playing at being an adult was the most thrilling and terrifying kind of game.

"If you won't quit your sham and be allies, I will have to grab you by the hair and toss you into a bonfire."

The shadow quivered in place and Cheryl felt a little bit sorry. Unfortunately, this only made her behave worse.

"I know your game," she warned it, crouching and creeping like a badger or a skunk. "You think you can keep ducking behind me whenever the suns or moons shine down so that I'll never see your face."

Cheryl sprung suddenly towards the rock's edge. "Coward!" she shouted, slapping the water.

Her reflection wiggled and wavered on the disturbed surface and when the lagoon had settled itself again (Cheryl would have to apologize to it later, or better, send one of the sweet Coopers to do it for her), the face floating before her was not her own. She gasped and so did the shadow, which was now shoulders, and a face, and long, pink hair.

Reaching out a nervous finger that kept curling itself back towards her palm, Cheryl finally touched the liquid stranger who had been with her as long as she could remember.

"Are you a devil?" she asked it, scraping her knees on the rock as she scooted closer. The ends of her red hair dipped into the lagoon and continued on in pink, rising up to the head of the shadow-Girl.

It laughed noiselessly and shook its head. Cheryl's eyes widened.

"A pirate hoax?"

The same response again.

"Well," Cheryl told it, "you're mine and you're not just a shadow, are you? I'm calling you Toni."

Toni nodded, though Cheryl had proudly lifted her chin in a sign that the naming was final and forever and not to be debated.

"Do you want to come out?"

Toni only looked at her, but her eyes seemed interested, so Cheryl plunged her arms into the lagoon, up past her elbows, looking for a solid part of the thing that she could grab onto.

"Hold still," she directed, shuffling forward more and more. Clearly, Toni was very lively and ready for any number of capers, if Cheryl could only pull her out.

She stretched and stretched and finally fell headfirst into the lagoon. Toni wasn't anywhere!

Heartily disappointed, Cheryl hovered upright over the water and stomped all the way across to the other side. At the bank, she kicked off and zipped high into the air, daring her frustration to keep up.

Racing gave way to looping, which gave way to coasting, and when Hangman's Tree was in sight, Cheryl dove towards home and the forest floor (which were the same). She landed in the dark, in her thick nest of blossoms, and when Josie came shaking pixie dust into her hair, Cheryl saw that Toni was already in bed, but could not imagine how the shadow-thing had beaten her there.


	19. Night

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 70: "What are you afraid of?"

* * *

Toni had always found a certain peace in the night. She'd learned from childhood not to fear the dark. Maybe the absence of the sun's light hid secrets, but they weren't awful things, they were wonderful. Bonfires. Fireflies. Fireworks. Other things not involving fire or similar phenomena. Even after Cheryl, and before the baby, she'd snuck out of their place after midnight and wandered under the stars. Trailing the stretched out sleeves of her sweatshirt through tall damp grass was one of Toni's favourite sensations. Probably for life.

Tonight, she rolled herself awake, surprised to see she was still under the ceiling of the bedroom she and Cheryl had shared for almost a decade. Toni could've sworn she'd been living one of those old nights, loose under the stars, where she'd fall asleep against a tree or by the bank of the Sweetwater before she could make it home and get teased by her friends the next day for having blades of grass in her hair, or the imprint of tree bark on her cheek. The flawlessly smooth sheets were the new kind of natural that came with living in her wife's ecosystem of luxury. The wife was the one element missing.

Scooping a hair elastic from the bedside table (hers, with the dog-eared Russian novels and the coffee table Ansel Adams book Cheryl had been asking her for months to move to the living room), Toni sat up and twisted her hair into something sloppy yet untroubling at the back of her neck. She tugged her sleep shorts (loose since the baby weight gradually fled) back into place after having flailed in her unconscious hours and padded out into the hall.

The house was dark and not at all a stranger to Toni, who had become a student of its dimensions. She's graduated out of stubbed toes and smacked elbows sometime between navigating bleary-eyed at 2 a.m. to reach the bathroom while their fetus played hopscotch on her bladder and stumbling to the living room before dawn to send herself back to sleep with a movie after Cheryl'd beaten her to the crib when the baby cried.

Everything was quiet. There was only the _swish swish_ of her bare feet on fine wool carpet and the _crick_ of her jaw when she yawned too wide. Besides that, a little _whoosh_ from the bathroom window as she shuffled past. Cool air was coming with the autumn.

The baby's room was the obvious destination―the only place Cheryl would rather be than with Toni―and that was exactly where she found her wife, leaning against the wall just inside the open door. Toni crept in, following the slim beam from the nightlight plugged in across the hall behind her, but Cheryl didn't flinch when she kissed her shoulder. Cuddling closer, Toni nosed into her wife's hair, sighed against her neck. Automatically, Cheryl wrapped an arm around her shoulders; when her mind was on other things, her default was to touch Toni in a place that the best part of the last year had taught her was safe to make contact with without causing Toni to wince, groan, or pee her pants.

"What's on your mind?" Toni whispered, running her fingers through her wife's hair.

"Him," she answered with a tired smiled. There was only really one _him_ in their lives, as far as the pair was concerned, and he was across the room, sound asleep under a mobile of foxes and bears. "Do you think we moved the crib out of our room too soon?"

Toni shook her head against Cheryl's shoulder.

"It was time. This step is the reason we bought all those fancy baby monitoring gadgets."

"Which, let me remind you, it took _four and a half hours_ to get back from Fangs and Sweet Pea when they stole them to play extreme hide and seek."

"And now we have them back. And they're working," Toni went on, "so please tell me why you're depriving yourself of sleep."

Cheryl turned to fully look at her for the first time. Her eyebrow lifted.

"Worried about what I'll look like without my beauty sleep?"

Toni yawned.

"Cute, but I'm too tired for this."

Her wife sighed and pulled Toni into her arms, chest to back, so they could both watch the snoozing lump that was their teeny son.

"What are you afraid of?" Toni asked when Cheryl stayed quiet. The silence lasted so long, she almost drifted off standing up.

"Everything," Cheryl breathed into her hair. "Right now, he's perfect. And he thinks _we're_ perfect. He deserves for us to be perfect," she added, even quieter now.

Toni gripped the forearms Cheryl had folded across her chest.

"We're going to be good for him, honey."

"I don't want it to be like my―"

"I know," Toni assured her, rubbing her arms. "His childhood is going to be magic. We're going to leave this room, go back to bed, and that's what I want you to dream about." She turned in her wife's arms, kissed her slow on the mouth. "Ready?" she whispered.

Eyes closed, Cheryl pressed her cheek to Toni's.

"Ok."


	20. Choni in Paris

**Author's Note:**

From the "Writing Prompts" list, prompt 56: "I'm sorry, what? I keep getting lost in your eyes."

* * *

What did a word like 'emancipation' mean when you behaved in the same ways you always had, trod the same tired halls, filled the same slot in the high school social order? Cheryl felt like as much of a seventeen-year-old small town cheerleader with a murderer for a pater as she ever had while living under the torment of her mother's domestic reign, so when Polly came to town on an extended visit with her twins, Cheryl requested that she stay with Nana Rose in order to give the old woman a chance to spend time with her great-grandbabies. Just like that, Cheryl was left to her own devices, free to grow, to explore, to learn, to… Paris!

This was what she'd been born for, Cheryl realized one morning, drinking an extravagantly priced coffee at the crack of dawn while first light projected the scalloped peaks of the neighbourhood buildings down onto the street of cobblestones. Surely, she had been switched at birth, born the child of a French couple after an unfortunate twist of fate found them in Riverdale with a premature delivery. What other explanation was there for the rightness Cheryl felt throughout her being as she jaywalked in tea dresses and kitten heels, or read _Les Fleurs du Mal_ for hours on a bench overlooking the Seine?

A month passed like one of the '5-6-7-8's she used to shout at her cheer squad and Cheryl found she had perfected the glamourous _ennui_ of the French, tromping the boulevards of _le_ _neuvième_ until she could reconstruct the Palais Garnier with her eyes shut to the golden sunshine of late summer. She'd seen all the main attractions several times over and while her overwhelming preference was to venture out on foot just to breathe Paris in, on the days when it rained, she began to search harder for new diversions.

Which was how, one afternoon, Cheryl darted out of an almost empty boutique and sprinted for the uncomfortably cramped entryway of a little museum between cloudbursts.

The girl behind the front desk practically glared at her, glancing up from her folded-over novel as Cheryl shook the water from her coat over the rubber mat. Cheryl ignored her while she acclimatized, pulling her long red hair out from inside her coat and peering around. It was a small gallery, full of moody-looking portraits. _Parfait_ , she thought, and approached the girl who grew less and less sullen the closer Cheryl came.

" _Voulez-vous une visite guidée, mademoiselle?_ "

" _Oui_ ," Cheryl accepted with a ready smile.

"English? American?" the girl enquired, smiling back now and coming out from behind the desk.

Cheryl sighed. How did they always know?

"Yes," she admitted, feeling her heart speed up a little as the girl brushed by her, leading her into the foremost room of the gallery, "but you can give the tour in French. I'm happy to get more practice with the language."

"Me too, with English," she laughed. "I study it at school."

Her laugh, like so many things in this city, charmed Cheryl, who found herself extending her hand to shake.

"Cheryl."

"Toni."

"Is that French?" she wondered aloud, feeling too comfortable with her guide to fear giving offense.

"Really it's Antoinette," Toni admitted, "but using my nickname means fewer odd comments."

"You don't say," Cheryl joked dryly. "I can't imagine why a name like Antoinette would be unpopular in France of all places."

Toni laughed again.

" _Viens_ , Cheryl. I can see from your outfit that you have remarkable taste. I think you will enjoy our portrait collection."

As she was led through the rooms (which stretched deep into the building, making the narrow gallery much larger than Cheryl has suspected), she considered her guide. Clearly, this place had a much laxer standard for employee appearance than the Louvre, for example. Toni had several piercings up her ear, not to mention hair the colour of some of the most beautiful pastries Cheryl had seen during her informal, self-guided tour of Paris's bakeries and patisseries early on in her trip. Very quickly, Cheryl was devoting all of her attention to watching Toni as the rich oil paint faces of brooding 18th century aristocrats seemed to slide past.

Eventually, in the middle of a prepared speech about the woman in the painting they were currently standing in front of, Toni caught Cheryl staring and gave her a flattered sort of smile.

"I'm sorry, what?" Cheryl said with a laugh. "I keep getting lost in your eyes."

Toni flushed, but a definite confidence sprang into her expression.

"Yes, the subject's gaze is particularly haunting," she said, making an excuse for Cheryl's forwardness by gesturing to the artwork. "You are not the first to comment on―"

" _Je pense que tu sais ce que j'ai dit_ ," Cheryl challenged with a toss of her hair.

"It's true, my English is exceptional," Toni replied, acknowledging that she did indeed know what Cheryl's intention had been.

"Ah, I love a girl without a shred of false modesty," Cheryl praised. "When are you done work?"

"Now." Toni grinned at her before leading her back towards the front of the gallery. "Did you eat before you came in? I could show you a place."

"Please," Cheryl encouraged. "I'm here to explore."


End file.
